July102014

Shir
Hever is an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a
Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour.
Hever researches the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territory, some of his research topics include the
international aid to the Palestinians and to Israel, the effects of the
Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli
economy, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against
Israel. His work also includes giving lectures and presentations on the
economy of the occupation. He is a graduate student at the Freie
Universitat in Berlin, and researches the privatization of security in
Israel. His first book: Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation:
Repression Beyond Exploitation, was published by Pluto Press.

[...]

HEVER:
I was born in Jerusalem, and I was born into a lefty household, a
critical household. And the most important thing that I think my parents
taught me and raised me with is this idea that I have to be aware of my
own privileges and to take responsibility for them, because Israeli
society is extremely divided and extremely hierarchical, and I am lucky
to have been born male, white, Jewish, Ashkenazi, so in all of these
categories in which I had an advantage, and my parents told me this is
an unfair advantage.

[...]

JAY: Now, just because it’s an
interesting kind of historical note, there’s kind of two types of
Zionist fascists. There are Zionists who are simply very aggressive
against Palestinians and people called them fascists, and then there are
Zionists who loved Mussolini.

HEVER: Yeah, I’m talking about the
second kind. I’m talking about real—people who really adopt this kind of
Zionist—or this kind of fascist ideology that the state is above
everything, and that we all have to conform to a certain idea, and that
we should find our great leader. So that kind of Zionism is not
mainstream, actually, and it’s not in power. In many demonstrations that
I had the chance to go to, people tend to shout that fascism will not
pass.But, of course, when you look at it from a more academic point of
view, there’s a difference between fascism and other kinds of repressive
regimes, and I would say Israel is a colonial regime, a colonialist
regime, in which there’s apartheid, there’s very deep entrenched
repression.

But in a colonialist system there’s always fear. And you grow up with this fear also. You always know—.

JAY: Did you?

HEVER:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, when I would go to certain areas or when I took a
taxi with a Palestinian driver, then even my closest family would get
nervous about it. And then it made me wonder: how come you taught me
that everybody’s equal but you’re still afraid of Palestinians?

[...]

(M)y
close family, my immediate family, they were very supportive of my
opinions. And we had many political debates at home—sometimes arguments,
but in the end I think for the outsider it doesn’t seem like we’re that
much far apart. When you go a little bit further to the extended
family, then that’s a whole different story. And most of the family on
my mother’s side stopped speaking with me after I decided not to go to
the army. And so, yeah, my mother’s parents, who were fighters in the
Palmach, they had a completely different worldview and a very Zionist
right-wing perspective in which they believe that all of these policies
against Palestinians were completely justified.

JAY: And your
grandparents, were any of them—when did they come to Israel? Did you
have direct family that were killed during World War II?

HEVER:
Yeah. So this is actually the exact—the interesting intersection of two
stories, because my mother’s side of the family came to Palestine before
the Holocaust, before the Second World War, and participated in the
Nakba against Palestinians. And my father’s family—.

JAY: So they came during the ’30s or ’20s?

HEVER:
Yeah, over some time, but yeah. And my father’s family came right after
the war. They escaped from the Nazis in Poland. And the vast majority
of the family in Poland was exterminated by the Nazis. So they escaped
to the Soviet Union, where they lived pretty harsh years during the war.
And then the family scattered again, and that part of the family that
chose to go to Palestine, to Israel, happened to be my side of the
family.

[...]

HEVER: That is a concept called Hebrew labor,
and it was done very openly and without shame because there was at that
point of time no concept that such structural and comprehensive racism
against a particular group of people is something that Jews should also
be worried about. I mean, it wasn’t something that was even in people’s
minds so much, because Palestinians were part of the scenery, part of
the background, and not treated as the native inhabitants of Palestine.
But it has to be said also that during those fights it wasn’t—even
though it was a colonial situation, in which Zionists were supported by
foreign powers in coming and colonizing Palestine, it wasn’t clear if
they were going to succeed or not, and it wasn’t clear until 1948
whether they would succeed or not. So from the personal stories of these
people, they saw themselves as heroes or as overcoming a great
adversity, and not as people who had all their options and decided that
here’s a little piece of land that we want to add to our collection.
From their point of view, this was their chance to have their own piece
of land, and when looking at the colonial powers, the European colonial
powers operating all of the world, they didn’t think that what they were
doing was so strange or peculiar.

[...]

HEVER: And during
the ’90s there was—the Oslo process began. There was a coalition between
Yitzhak Rabin from the Labor Party and Meretz, which was the part that
they supported. Meretz was the liberal party for human rights, but still
a Zionist party. And this coalition started to negotiate with Yasser
Arafat and to start the Oslo process. But at the same time, they would
implement these policies that were just completely undemocratic and—for
example, to take 400 people who were suspected of being members of the
Hamas Party without a trial and just deport them. And at that point my
parents had a kind of crisis of faith and they decided not to support
his party anymore. And I would say this is the moment where Zionism was
no longer accepted.

[...]

HEVER: I think the moment that I
made that choice is actually much later, because it’s possible to have
all these opinions but still play the game and go to any regular career
path. But after I decided not to go into the army and after I decided to
go to university, in the university I experienced something that
changed my mind.

JAY: But back up one moment. You decide not to go into the army. (...) That’s a big decision in Israel.

HEVER:
Well, I was again lucky to be in this very interesting time period
where Netanyahu just became prime minister, and he was being very
bombastic about his announcements, and a lot of people started doubting
the good sense of going into the army. So it was a time where it was
relatively easy to get out. At first I thought, I will go into the army,
because I went to a very militaristic school. My school was very proud
of all the intelligence officers that used to come out of it. So I
thought, okay, I don’t want to be an occupier, I don’t want to be a
combat soldier in the occupied territory, but if I’ll find some some
kind of loophole that I can be a teacher or do some kind of noncombat
work for the army, I’ll do that.

[...]

And I used to support
the Oslo process, because I used to read the Israeli newspapers, and it
seemed like Israel is being very generous and willing to negotiate,
when in fact—. But my mother, I said that she was working for the
government. She would bring me some documents about the Oslo process,
and there I would be able to read about the water allocation and about
land allocation and say, well, this is certainly not a fair kind of
negotiation. But then, when the Second Intifada started, it was
repressed with extreme violence by the Israeli military, by the Israeli
police. And that was also a moment in which I felt that even living in
Israel is becoming unbearable for me. But there’s always kind of the
worry, is it going to get to the next step? I think this immediate
tendency to compare it with the ’30s in Germany is because it’s a Jewish
society.

The
Palmach (Hebrew: פלמ"ח, acronym for Plugot Maḥatz (Hebrew: פלוגות מחץ),
lit. “strike forces”) was the elite fighting force of the Haganah, the
underground army of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of
the British Mandate for Palestine. The Palmach was established on 15 May
1941. By the outbreak of the Israeli War for Independence in 1948 it
consisted of over 2,000 men and women in three fighting brigades and
auxiliary aerial, naval and intelligence units. With the creation of
Israel’s army, the three Palmach Brigades were disbanded. This and
political reasons led to many of the senior Palmach officers resigning
in 1950.

Meretz
defines itself as a Zionist, left-wing, social-democratic party. The
party is a member of the Socialist International and an observer member
of the Party of European Socialists. It sees itself as the political
representative of the Israeli Peace movement in the Knesset – as well as
municipal councils and other local political bodies.In the
international media it has been described as left-wing,
social-democratic, dovish, secular, civil libertarian, and
anti-occupation.

"Hebrew
labor" is often also referred to as “Jewish labor” although the former
is the literal translation of “avoda ivrit”. According to Even-Zohar the
immigrants of the Second Aliyah preferred to use the word “Hebrew”
because they wanted to emphasize the difference between their “new
Hebrew” identity and the “old Diaspora Jewish” identity. For them the
word “Hebrew” had romantic connotations with the “purity” and
“authenticity” of the existence of the “Hebrew nation in its land”, like
it had been in the past.

Related to the concept of “Hebrew labor” was the concept of “alien
labor”. Ben-Gurion wrote about the settlers of the First Aliyah: “They
introduced the idol of exile to the temple of national rebirth, and the
creation of the new homeland was desecrated by avodah zara”. According
to Shapira avodah zara means both “alien labor” and, in a religious
sense, “idol worship”. Along with bloodshed and incest this is one of
the three worst sins in Judaism. Application of this concept to the
employment of Arab workers by Jews depicted this as a taboo.

February162014

A bomb blast ripped through a bus carrying 30 tourists in Sinai, Egypt, today, killing at least two South Korean tourists and the Egyptian bus driver. According to reports, the tourists had completed touring St Catherine's Monastery and were on their way to Israel, when the bomb exploded.

Those of us who are not journalists will not know what happened in the Taba bus blast because of the contradicting information and casualty figures. It is a struggle for journalists to get information in a country which denies all information

And if this is not enough, The Big Pharaoh claims the Muslim Brotherhood Twitter account is spreading more mis-information:

Zeinobia, on Egyptian Chronicles, is alarmed tourists are being targeted. She blogs:

We are back to the days of the 1990s where tourists were a main target. Actually we are back to the 2000s where South Sinai had its share from several terrorist attacks.
Now the attacks moved to South where tourism industry began to catch up.
I am concerned that after targeting the tourists in Taba in 2000s , the security forces unleashed hell abusing locals there affecting their relationship with the state till this day in addition to whatever happening in the North now from military campaign against the terrorist groups things will go from bad to worse to worst.

February122014

The diverse migratory flows that have reached Argentina from the 1880′s and until now contributed to the richness and variety of the typical [en] cuisine in the country.

The various ‘ferias de colectividades’ (cultural fairs) that take place throughout Argentina are good illustrations of this. In these fairs we can witness not only a display of each community's traditions, folkloric dances, beauty pageants and souvenirs but also their traditional dishes. For instance, during the Fiesta de Colectividades in the city of Rosario that takes place every year, a varied menu is offered representing the multiple communities (Latin, European and Asian) that compose the Argentinian society. In this video, we can see how typical Paraguayan food is prepared and sold during that same fair in Rosario.

Chop the onions very finely. Fry lightly with one tbsp of oil. Add the peppers after they've been diced followed by the leeks finely cut. Stir well. Add the cream and mushrooms.

Cook for 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. You can also add some nutmeg if you wish. If sauce gets too thick, add some milk. Serve with grilled or roast chicken.

In addition there are community-specific celebrations, such as the one by the Volga Germans [en], who settled mostly in the province of Entre Ríos. The Volga Germans lived in the region of southeastern European Russia, close to the Volga river [en]. They came to Argentina in 1878 and preserved their traditions as well as their language. Cuisine is naturally at the heart of these traditions. This video produced by the Asociación Argentina de Descendientes de Alemanes del Volga (Argentinian Association of the Volga Germans Descendants) demonstrates how to prepare a Kreppel:

There also many restaurants serving foreign food. The Croatian community in Argentina, for instance, keeps its culinary traditions with restaurants like Dobar Tek, offering a rich Croatian menu. This video shows the “art” of preparing an apple strudel.

It's quite intriguing that the Armenian cuisine we eat in Argentina is quite different from the one actually consumed in Armenia. This has to do with the reinventions done by the different populations based on their homeland, the traditions that they bring and what ends up being valued in the new community. Some dishes are considered traditional yet they are barely known there (in Armenia).

One of the cities symbolizing the Jewish immigration to Argentina is Moisés Ville [en], established by the first immigrants who reached the country. On the YouTube account of the initiative Señal Santa Fe we can see the city and get to know how traditions are preserved through well-known dishes such as the strudel or the Knish [en] among others:

But which dish was quickly adopted by immigrants upon their arrival to the country? The asado [en] without any doubt, especially because the majority of the newcomers were peasants and meat was quite cheap. The Club Argentino de Asadores a la Estaca (Argetinian Club of Rotisseurs) has some photos for you to enjoy.

January262014

About 30,000 undocumented Africans living in Israel [fr] mounted a three-day strike and a series of protests backed by human rights defenders in early January against an act that allows Israeli authorities to place illegal immigrants in detention without any trial nor case review for up to a year.

Aside from the new law, approved on December 10, 2013, protesters denounced the refusal of Israeli authorities to consider their applications for refugee status as well as the detention of hundreds of them. The video below highlights the scale of events and presents protesters demands:

The Holot detention centre in the Negev desert, near the border between Israel and Egypt, already has received numerous inmates since December 2013.

Holot can house 3,300 migrants and is set to expand, eventually reaching a capacity of between 6,000 and 9,000 people, according to Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Israel's Public Security Minister.

The anti-illegal African feeling has reached alarming levels, fed by hate speech, such as the “Le sentiment” video published by Djemila Yamina. The video shows Israeli citizens stating in a public gathering that illegal immigrants are “psychopaths, scum and manure that need to be expelled from our country”

Elsewhere, minority extremist groups have attacked immigrants. In Israel, the government and the judiciary systems are taking an active part. Previously in July 2012, Allain Jules condemned [fr] on his blog:

What is going on in Israel is shameful. Between a minister demanding that illegal immigrants are simply assassinated, suggesting we shoot at them at the very moment they try to cross the borders, and another minister that talks about the risks of impurity for the future state of Israel that must retain its Jewish character

By virtue of the Israeli law, work is prohibited for immigrants as long as they are not registered as asylum seekers. Which is virtually impossible for them. In effect, according to United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), while the national average recognition rate for asylum seekers is 39 percent, in Israel this rate is lower than 1 percent. In Israel, the majority of asylum claimants are Eritreans and Sudanese, that have an international recognition rate of 84 percent and 64 percent respectively.

This racism is incomprehensible coming from people who have suffered under the Nazis, with its cohort of heinous acts aimed at Jewish extermination. Nevertheless, it was Golda Meir who proclaimed that: “… Africans and Jews share common points. They have been victims of history, who died in concentration camps or have been enslaved… “. In the 1960s, the Israeli State forged strong links with the African continent. African students were welcomed into the kibbutz. Vice versa, there were plenty of Israelis who were involved in supporting the development of the newly enacted independent states. It is worth mentioning too the struggle of South African Jews alongside Nelson Mandela in the strife against apartheid. Not to forget those who engaged with the Civil Rights activists in the United States.

What is it about illegal immigration that provokes so much hatred in Israel? In response, JOL Press site presents figures [fr] from the Freedom 4 Refugees Association:

“Approximately 50,000 asylum seekers live currently in Israel. We fled persecution, military forces, dictatorship, civil wars and genocide. Instead of being treated as refugees by the government of Israel, we are being dealt with as criminals,” explained Freedom4Refugees. “We demand that the law be revoked, the end of arrests, and the release of all asylum seekers and refugees imprisoned,” the refugees declared in a petition communicated by the Freedom4Refugees Association. Mainly Sudanese, South Sudanese and Eritrean demonstrators further demand that asylum applications are made “in an individual, fair and transparent way”.

Al Monitor website noted the discriminatory character of measures taken against African immigrants:

At the same time, however, there are some 93,000 “tourists without valid visas” in Israel, about half of them from the former Soviet Union. Needless to say, the government is not building special detainment centers for them. The number of people requesting asylum is also significantly lower than the number of legal guest workers in Israel (approximately 70,000), much to the relief of those companies that arrange to bring them to the country and employ them.

There has been striking indifference at an international level. In an article published on Rue89, Renée Greusard disclosed everyday racism against Israel's black population:

When we address this issue together, American journalist David Sheen weighs his words and talks slowly:

“The current level of racism in Israel can be compared to what has been experienced in other Western countries 50, 60 years ago. People are insulted in the streets. Often when blacks board buses, people would plug their noses and block the seats near them, opening the windows while ranting ‘Ah! But we don't need all these blacks!'

In other countries, people are embarrassed by their racist thoughts. They do not divulge them in public. Here, not quite. They are confident and proud on their racism.”

These types of comments frequently arouse passions on both sides of the issue. An article by Jack Guez on Yahoo News has received 2,410 comments, and many of these comments have in turn attracted plenty of “likes”. The comment below has received 82 favourable opinions:

People criticize Israel but no one says a thing about Saudi Arabia, why?

Saudi Arabia expelled 200,000 Africans a few weeks ago!

The death of Ariel Sharon brought the protests and strike to a temporary halt for a few days. However, the struggle of the undocumented migrants in Israel continues. After marching outside the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as other foreign embassies in Tel-Aviv, protesters have held demonstrations in front of The Knesset, the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the government continues to herald sluggish proposals.

December122013

What happens when a Palestinian is “discovered” on a train in Israel? They send him back home with the message, “Go to your people and tell them that we want peace.” Read Hamze Awawde's inspiring account here.

November092013

In a video released in July 2011, Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon offered his version of the “Israel Palestinian Conflict: The Truth About the West Bank”. In the video he explained the meaning of terms such as Palestine, the West Bank and the Occupied Territories based on the official Israeli narrative that denies the existence of Palestine. In response, on November 6, 2013, two Palestinian young women react to Ayalon with historic facts and sources, from Herodote and Aristotle to Ariel Sharon´s birth certificate that identifies him as born in Palestine.

A September 28, 1998 file photo shows Palestinian leader #Yasser_Arafat addressing the 53rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. (Photo: AFP - Timothy A. Clary)

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was poisoned to death in 2004 with radioactive polonium, his widow Suha said on Wednesday after receiving the results of Swiss forensic tests on her husband’s corpse. “We are revealing a real crime, a political assassination,” she told Reuters in Paris. (...)

November052013

Humor, especially dark humor, is a culturally acquired taste – especially in a war zone. The hashtag #PalestinianPickUpLines has recently been trending on Twitter, garnering tens of additions in the past few days.

These proposals, sometimes warm and funny, other times angry and political, reflect the reality of life in Palestine and the Palestinian diaspora.

British-born Firas Nabil, who identifies himself as “Palestinian at heart,” offers several romanticisms, including:

Blogger Woman Unveiledwrites that this humorous trend provides a sense of relief from the hardships of daily life.

“I am the type of person who believes that the way to move forward on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to focus on the current issues without letting past events hold back progress… As Palestinians continue to face hardships and an infringement on their most basic human rights, one trend on Twitter sheds light on how humor can help ease some of this pain… The pick-up lines definitely garner laughs in a way that also brings to light the different ways Israel’s actions, often illegal under international law, disrupt the daily lives of Palestinians.”

It is a weakness of Twitter themes that despite being salient at the moment, it is difficult to trace their origins and development. Likewise, little information is available about this trend, which reflects others before it, like the March emergence of the same tag, and previous ones like the July 2011 hashtag #SiegePickUpLines.

Egyptian blogger Mosa'ab Elshamy, along with his friend identified on Twitter as WelshInGaza (no longer available) declares himself responsible for #SiegePickUpLines. He explains that the two conceived the idea after a conversation about humor in the face of life in Gaza.

“Arabs usually face their misery with humor. It was a question which arose from pure curiosity and was fascinating when others (many Palestinians included) joined in the collective ridiculing of the illegal Gaza siege and the daily hardship people face in the, ahem, strip. As tweets flew, more people seemed not to limit the jokes on the siege, power cuts, tunnels and, ahem, rockets but other situations like the flotilla, UN resolutions, two-state solution and US politicians.

Elshamy includes among his favorite tweets:

“Baby, you must be from PalestFINE.”
“I’d never leave you (even if I could).”
“We may not have human rights, but baby, we have human needs…”
“Dating me is like being Israel, you’ll never have to apologize for anything, girl.”
“Baby are you a drone? ‘Cause you’ve been buzzing in my head alllll day.”
“They say opposites attract. Will you be the Hamas to my Fateh”
“Baby, let’s get together and make a one state solution.”

Yasmeen El Khoudary, who blogs at Gaza, Out of the Blue (and who is also a Global Voices Online author), adds:

“As a Palestinian from Gaza who believes in the power of sarcastic humor, I loved this. Its the -humane- short jokes and statements that really shed light on the truth, more than any misleading and -often biased- news story.”

If you know more about the history of these two trends, or ones like them, please comment and share.

In the meantime, it seems that in hard times we reach out to each other using humor to commiserate and connect. If you enjoyed reading about #PalestinianPickUpLines and #SiegePickUpLines, #HumorHeals and #ShutdownPickUpLines, from the recent U.S. government shutdown, may also appeal. What others have you come across that make you laugh or appreciate your current situation more? We want to hear from you.

A series of ads by UN Women, revealed in late October, used the Google Autocomplete feature to uncover widespread negative attitudes toward women. Global Voices followed reactions to the UN Women campaign and conducted its own experiment in different languages. The results of searches conducted both within the UN Women campaign and Global Voices revealed popular attitudes not only about women’s social and professional roles, but also about their sexuality, appearance and relationships with men.

The creators of the UN Women ads used search phrases like “women cannot”, “women shouldn’t”, “women should” and “women need to” completed by genuine Google search terms to highlight overwhelmingly negative stereotypes, sexist and highly discriminatory views held about women by society globally. The ads quickly went viral and sparked a heated discussion online. Last week, creators have announced that they are planning to expand the campaign in response to the mass online reaction.

The auto-complete function for searches, according to Google, predicts users’ queries based on the search activity of all users of the web as well as the content of indexed pages. The predictions may also be influenced by past searches of the particular user if they are signed into their Google account.

Global Voices asked its contributors from around the world to carry out Google searches using the same or similar phrases as those used in the UN Women campaign, in their own languages. The searches done between October 19 and October 25, 2013, revealed attitudes about the roles women are expected to take in society, often demonstrating the same global prejudices, but sometimes showing contradictions in different countries. Below are searches in 12 languages from different countries and continents:

Spanish

Chile

“Women should not…”. A screenshot by Silvia Viñas. October 21, 2013.

Women should not…
Women should not preach
Women should not work
Women should not talk in the congregation
Women should not drive

Women should…
Women should be submissive
Women should use the veil
Women should preach
Women should work

French

France

“Women should…”. A screenshot by Suzanne Lehn. October 21, 2013.

Women should…
women should stay at home
women should work
should women preach
women should wear skirts
women should be submissive
women should know
women should vote
women should stay at home
should women work
women should do the cooking

“Women don't know…”. A screen shot by Rayna St. October 21, 2013.

Women don’t know…
women don't know how to drive
women don't know what they want
women don't know how to be in love
women don't know how to read cards

In Danish, the searches for “women cannot” and “women can” yielded the same results.

RussianRussia

“Women should not…”. A screenshot by Veronica Khokhlova. October 19, 2013.

Women should not…
Women should not be believed
Women should not lift heavy things
Women should not drink
Women should not be trusted

English

The UK

“Women should…”. A screenshot by Annie Zaman. October 25, 2013.

Women should…
Women should be seen and not heard
Women should stay at home
Women should know their place

Not all searches carried out by members of Global Voices community turned up negative terms. Nevertheless, the results of the experiment largely confirm UN Women’s worrying conclusion that a great deal of work still remains to be done in order to advance women’s rights and empowerment around the world.

The blogger Freedomseeker has another idea, and published a photo that apparently shows Iranian police stopping women in the street for what they are wearing. The blogger ironically says [fa], “Now I am listening to western pop music in disguise.”

Another blogger, Andarbab writes [fa] I am not for the Israeli Prime Minister, his problem with the Islamic Republic is about nuclear bombs and he does not care about Iranian people. But here is an article published [fa] in the semi-official Isna news where a cinema expert claims that his image was not broadcast on TV because he wore jeans.

October012013

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of lying in his rejection of Tehran’s overtures to the West as a cosmetic ‘charm offensive.’ “We have seen nothing from Netanyahu but lies and actions to deceive and scare, and international public opinion will not let these lies go unanswered,” Zarif said in an interview with Iranian television broadcast on Tuesday. read (...)

As pressure mounts on Washington to cut off U.S. military aid to Egypt, Cairo has found an awkward ally in the form of AIPAC, the influential pro-Israel lobby firm that is actively pushing for continued U.S. aid to Egypt.

Long considered an incentive for Cairo to maintain peaceful ties with Israel, America’s $1.3 billion package in annual U.S. military assistance to Egypt has come under global criticism as Egypt’s military continues its bloody crackdown against anti-government protesters with U.S.-funded tanks and tear gas.

AFTER decades of building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which Palestinians see as the basis of their would-be state, Israel’s government may be moving its focus south. Long in a slump, construction in Israel’s southern desert, the Negev, is outpacing not only that of the West Bank settlements, but in central Israel as well. At a cost of $6 billion, Israel is transforming the wastes around Beersheba, on the edge of the Negev, and building new cities, including one that is the country’s largest such project. By 2020 Israel plans to boost its Negev population by 50% to 1m, almost twice the number of settlers now in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Today Israeli President Shimon Peres is arriving to Latvia for two days visit. But shortly before it last week there was small scandal - Israel argued that President Andris Bērziņš does not want to attend a Holocauset memorial ceremony.Delegates from Israel usually have hard program in Latvia - they attend Holocaust Memorials and other places where Jewish people were tortured or killed in Latvia. Usually it also includes apologizing from Latvia’s side for those Latvians who participated in killing Jewish.Latvia denies these allegations that Andris Bērziņš does not want to attend Holocaust Memorial and stresses that this year Shimon Peres will have opportunity to attend Žanis Lipke- man who saved many Jewish during war- museum and see that there were also Latvians who helped.

Latvian President Andris Berzins is making an effort to avoid attending a Holocaust memorial ceremony together with Israel’s President Shimon Peres during his upcoming visit to Latvia next week.

Berzins aides responded to a request from senior Israeli staff that he attend the ceremony at the Rumbula Forest with Peres, saying Berzins was too busy. They also reportedly told Israeli aides there is a state policy in the country preventing the Latvian president from accompanying visiting presidents to ceremonies, according to Israeli media.

The ceremony commemorates the deaths of 24,000 Jews from Riga and 1,000 German Jews murdered in the forest in November-December 1941 by the Einsatzgruppen units of the SS Nazi police, assisted by Latvian police and volunteers. They were transported to the forest by train and thrown into pits dug by the German Jews at the site.